Human-Computer Interaction Books

This publication deals with the human factors and signal processing aspects of audio in 3-D systems. It is divided into six chapters:
1. Virtual Auditory Space: Context, Acoustics, and Psychoacoustics
2. Overview of Spatial Hearing Part 1: Azimuth and Elevation Perception
3. Overview of Spatial Hearing Part 2: Sound Source Distance and Environmental Context
4. Implementing 3-D Sound Systems, Sources, and Signal Processing
5. Virtual Acoustic Applications
6. Resources
Chapters one through four are the most useful as they present details of psychoacoustics, physical acoustics, and signal processing with plenty of instructive diagrams and equations when necessary. Chapters 5 and 6 on applications and resources are the least useful since they focus on these subjects from the perspective of 1994, which might as well be a century ago given the progress made in computing platforms. This publication is still useful since most texts in print on audio today focus on Windows-centric plug-in solutions for games where there are little technical details about the physics of the situation because the targeted reader is a high school or college student writing game programs in their basements. If you think this rather academic tome is for you, it is now available free on the web. Since Amazon tends to throw out reviews with web addresses in them, suffice it to say if you type in "3-D sound for virtual reality and multimedia" in quotations as I show it here into Google, the first web address you see should be the on-line version of this book.
The reader should already be familiar with digital signal processing in order to get the most out of this publication. If you are planning on doing the "big picture" design of a 3-D audio application, this old publication is essential reading.

I'm pretty sure that it is also the only book presently available. It IS fairly well written, and if you are writing a sound engine for a game, or a similar application, I would strongly recommend this book. On the other hand, parts of it are extremely technical, so if you do not know if you can follow it, you may wish to keep looking.

This title is a wonderful collection of chapters written by psychologists, engineers, mathematicians, and musicians. A better source for the fundamentals and directions of research and issues involved in auditory display is not currently available. A must read for those interested in auditory pattern recognition.

This proceedings is a excellent review of differents uses of audio in computer systems. The book covers topics like auralization, sonification, as well as a very useful anotated bibliography. Moreover, a companion CD included in the book ilustrate aurally all of the concepts explained by using text in the book.

...can sometimes be a difficult task. Fortunately, the complier(s) of this big book of RFCs have done a great job at presenting the standards, in a single volume so when you are bored on a 6 hour flight, you can catch up on RFC 1617 and pour over the alias object class, or choose another and investigate what that cryptic attribute was *really* created to do, software vendors be damned :)

Overall, I think this is a great reference to have if you are an LDAP architect, developer or implementor, although not for the average person who is just looking at getting some knowledge of LDAP on the surface... Exactly what was needed!

It is nice to have all these RFCs(request for comments) in one book to help those who implement not to overlook some aspects of the implementation like say how to store a Java object in ldap directory service hopefully using JNDI and also how to find if your choice of ldap solution is 100% pure ldap. Not to mention understanding the real security of the ldap offered to systems, users and applications. What is the real Enterprise solution. I hoped this protocol has another friendly name like FarLook or WithinLook or even Enterprise Superman. Do not forget to consider the add-on ldap based applications, there are 30+ security apps. Good luck. ldapguru@yahoo.com

As the various unixes developed in the 1990s, vendors tried to make administration easier by writing proprietary UIs to simplify tasks. For example, IBM came up with SMIT. Of course, each UI was only for that vendor's unix. A developer, Cameron, set out to simplify this across vendors, by writing Webmin. As the book explains, it has now been ported to most unixes and linux.

The book shows that Webmin is ideal for a new sysadmin. Reduces the intimidation factor of unix. It may be increasingly relevant if linux keeps growing on servers and even on desktops. On the latter, a sysadmin (you!) may well be a former Microsoft OS user who decided to take the plunge into a free operating system, but is worried about the necessary level of expertise.

All the important admin tasks, like making new user accounts, setting up a mailer, and networking, are possible via Webmin. So if you are still trepid, this book might assuage your concerns. Cooper writes clearly and at a level accessible to many. No prerequisite knowledge of unix is assumed. Plus, he gives only the core functionality of Webmin, to avoid information overload. The book deliberately eshews explaining every module.

This is a great book that describes one of the best pieces of software for a *NIX enviroment I have ever seen. It is easy to read and understand

Webmin is a great web based interface that can handle clustering, updates across all servers handles by Webmin and many many other things

Joe does a great job getting into the details of Webmin and the basics of everyday system administration as is relates to the use of Webmin

As a experinced Linux System Admin I found many tips for the use of Webmin that have made my life as an Admin much easier

My hats off to Joe for such a great book and Jamie for a fantastic piece of Open Source Software

The print is large, the pages of soft, and it's a great way to quickly learn about the most commonly used aspects of the Motif widget set. It's quick reading and the book lays out the information very systematically. However, before reading this book I thoroughly went through the first hundred pages of The Definitive Guides to the X Window System: Volume Four - X Toolkit Intrinsics Programming Manual Motif Edition. This book goes through each concept thoroughly (and agonisingly). However, it did give me a very solid foundation to build on. You should already have a basic understanding of GUI development and X before reading this book.

If you already know how to compile and link in a UNIX environment, this book will be an excellent place to start to learn Motif and CDE. If not, you may find some things a little confusing. The author assumes you already know some of the basics and so doesn't waste your time with review, but instead plunges right into the topic. I found this book helpful, but only after learning how to compile and link in UNIX.

Vicente himself observed that before him there only existed sophisticated guidelines on different aspects of human-machine interaction but no holistic approach that is fit for the engineer. So he undertook the work and succeeded. Building on known technics he refined and combined them to form a coherent framework that guides you from the first assessment to the final delivery, putting emphasis on the 'get it right the first time' principle.

In contrast with other books on human machine interaction the ideas of the book are coherent, logical and refreshing to read.

The work is intended for big industrial projects, so our positive experince with a small-scale project is not representative. Still, Vincentes book is not a cookery-book but on the abstract and generic level and capable of being used in very different enviroments.

The only drawback is the use of the example microworld. I believe that most readers would have rather read about Vincentes experience in nuclear power plants with all its technical complexity than being bored by his fabricated and dull pump system.

For some time now, I have been interested in the work of Jens Rasmussen and Kim Vicente. A dive into their work is a must for all cognitive engineers/psychologists within the field of man-machine interaction. What has been lcking from their work however, is an overall framework. What is the relation between the SRK taxonomy, direct perception, the decision ladder etc.? In this book Kim Vicente presents such a unifying framework for a "formative" approach to design of complex sosiotechnical systems. The first five chapters brilliantly summarises the problems related to the current establishment within the field. Normative approaches and a representational approach to human cognition neccesarily leads to problems of how to design for the unanticipated. For those familiar with the EID approach, buy this book NOW. For those who are not, I would recomend also reading some of the earlier materilal.

Thomas Hoff, Dept. of product design, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Nardi has edited a provocative compendium of theoretical expositions and methodological examples for the application of activity theory in the design of collaborative computing systems. In many ways, this book was ahead of its time. It's importance to the emerging disciplines of interaction design and design based research should not be underestimated.

One of my favorite books.

This is a mind blowing collection of papers that would interest any enthusiast of educational frameworks/theories. It clearly states the implications of activity theory to instructional design/architecture, knowledge management and all that fun stuff. The first couple of papers, by Nardi, Kuutiti and others, are particularly provocative.

First off, I'm a college freshman and a MUDder. I found this book in UNLV's library after looking for a book for my sociology class. I picked it up and flipped through it, and decided to check it out. It was a couple of weeks before I actually sat down and started to read it. I do have to say that Ms. Cherny has masterfully dissected what a social MUDder is. Insightful, Entertaining, and Exact, this book is an excellent read for a MUDder.

Lynn Cherny has analysed a chat community at the university through envolved participation. Therefore it is valuable. It's for all a linguistic study. There is some analysis of conflict and alienation but this wasn't the main purpose.

Once a hidden topic, discussions of how systems utilize users' time are now key to designing a solid web application, and nearly 40 years of human computer interaction research prompts Dr. Steven Seow to present a discussion of best practices for reflecting users' subjective perceptions of time in hardware and software alike. DESIGNING AND ENGINEERING TIME: PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME PERCEPTION IN SOFTWARE PSYCHOLOGY AND SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT is an excellent title for any library strong in software development or psychology.

Seow presents an easy to read book about the importance of subjective time passage to a user of a computer program. The discussion includes the establishing of user-centric metrics, which are [or should be] decoupled from the technology.

So naturally, the emphasis is on the user interface. When something is happening inside the program, that takes some time duration long enough to be detected by the user, then the UI might or should have some acknowledgment or feedback in visual form. To assuage the user's perception. The simplest case is of moving graphics, that at least indicates that the program is not frozen. The book explains how, if you can provide more substantive feedback, to do so.

Like perhaps subsuming and not displaying deep technical details about what the program is doing, if this is irrelevant to your typical user. If the program can estimate reasonably accurately the percentage of progress to completion, then the UI should update this as the program churns along.

This book is a must read for anyone who is serious about the future of Robotics and how these biomechanical devices will interact with us.

The book is well structured, and includes many photos and diagrams. I found it useful because I work exactly on the same topic. However, most of its content can be found elsewhere (in published articles). The accompanying CD-ROM includes very interesting videos, although I think they can also be found elsewhere. In summay, I definitely recommend this book, but only if you are really interested in the topic and/or in Kismet, and you want to know as many details as you can.